Luke, the eponymous author of the gospel that bears his name as well as the book of Acts, wrote the largest portion of the New Testament. Luke is generally thought to be a gentile. This book addresses a question raised by Jesus's disciples at the very beginning of Acts: "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" The question is freighted with political and national significance as it inquires about the restoration of political sovereignty to the Jewish people. This book investigates Luke's perspective on the salvation of Israel in light of Jewish restoration eschatology. It situates Luke-Acts in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The author of Luke-Acts did not write the Jews off but still awaited the restoration of Israel. Luke conceived of Israel's eschatological restoration in traditional Jewish terms. The nation of Israel would experience liberation in the fullest sense, including national and political restoration. Luke's Jewish Eschatology builds upon the appreciation of the Jewish character of early Christianity in the decades after the Holocaust, which has witnessed the reclamation of the Jewishness of the historical Jesus and even Paul.

"The following book investigates Luke's perspective on the salvation of Israel in light of Jewish restoration eschatology. It situates Luke-Acts in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The author of Luke-Acts did not write the Jews off but still awaited the restoration of Israel. Luke conceived of Israel's eschatological restoration in traditional Jewish terms. The nation of Israel would experience liberation in the fullest sense, including national and political restoration"--

Anders E. Nielsen presents a fresh look on New Testament eschatology by analysing the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. He first of all considers whether ancient literary expressions of farewell motif may or may not lead to an outlook of some sort of transcendental nature, which could play an active role in the composition of the text as read text. He concludes that in a fairly representative number of non-biblical as well as biblical farewell-addresses we do find transcendental outlooks with eschatological implications. Furthermore, these particular outlooks seem to be at work in close relation to the approaching death of the intended speaker of the addresses. Against this background the two major farewell addresses, the one of Jesus in Luke 22 and the one of Paul in Acts 20, are at great length analysed by means of a rhetorical and text-linguistic approach. Anders E. Nielsen divides his exegetical-theological findings into three main-points. First of all the traditional hypothesis of an imminent expectation of the parousia is seen as problematic, because the eschatology in Luke seems to be less a matter of chronology and more a question of quality. Secondly, some of the sayings in a hellenistic work like Luke-Acts may sometimes be free to express a vertical-transcendent aspect with individual-eschatological associations, while other phases are sufficiently vague to call up in the audience both individual and/or collective-eschatological connotations. Thirdly, all this put together suggests that Luke's religious language does in fact not play down eschatology. On the contrary, Anders E. Nielsen suggests that one can speak of some sort of applied eschatology in the sense that all the relevant expressions in the compositions examined suggest a far more parenetic or prescriptive semantic function than an informative one.

This survey of the history of critical scholarship on the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles draws particular attention to the interpretation of Luke's treatment of Jews and Judaism. It notes that the Holocaust was a major turning point in the history of New Testament scholarship.

Luke/Acts and the End of History investigates how understandings of history in diverse texts of the Graeco-Roman period illuminate Lukan eschatology. In addition to Luke/Acts, it considers ten comparison texts as detailed case studies throughout the monograph: Polybius's Histories, Diodorus Siculus's Library of History, Virgil's Aeneid, Valerius Maximus's Memorable Doings and Sayings, Tacitus’s Histories, 2 Maccabees, the Qumran War Scroll, Josephus's Jewish War, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch. The study makes a contribution both in its method and in the questions it asks. By placing Luke/Acts alongside a broad range of texts from Luke's wider cultural setting, it overcomes two methodological shortfalls frequently evident in recent research: limiting comparisons of key themes to texts of similar genre, and separating non-Jewish from Jewish parallels. Further, by posing fresh questions designed to reveal writers' underlying conceptions of history—such as beliefs about the shape and end of history or divine and human agency in history—this monograph challenges the enduring tendency to underestimate the centrality of eschatology for Luke's account. Influential post-war scholarship reflected powerful concerns about "salvation history" arising from its particular historical setting, and criticised Luke for focusing on history instead of eschatology due to the parousia’s delay. Though some elements of this thesis have been challenged, Luke continues to be associated with concerns about the delayed parousia, affecting contemporary interpretation. By contrast, this study suggests that viewing Luke/Acts within a broader range of texts from Luke's literary context highlights his underlying teleological conception of history. It demonstrates not only that Luke retains a sense of eschatological urgency seen in other New Testament texts, but a structuring of history more akin to the literature of late Second Temple Judaism than the non-Jewish Graeco-Roman historiographies with which Luke/Acts is more commonly compared. The results clarify not only Lukan eschatology, but related concerns or effects of his eschatology, such as Luke’s politics and approach to suffering. This monograph thereby offers an important corrective to readings of Luke/Acts based on established exegetical habits, and will help to inform interpretation for scholars and students of Luke/Acts as well as classicists and theologians interested in these key questions.